With the advent of modern telecommunications systems, users call a variety of goods and services providers for a number of goods and/or services related issues. Users call their wire line and wireless telecommunication services providers for services such as directory assistance, voice mail services, services maintenance, and the like. Likewise, customers call a variety of vendors for goods and services such as financial services, general information services, and the like. Because of the enormous volume of such calls, may services providers and goods vendors make use of voice interactive services systems for reducing the number of live personnel required to process incoming calls. For example, a caller may call her telecommunications services provider for directory assistance. Rather than connecting the caller to a live operator, the caller may be connected to a voice interactive directory assistance system that may answer “welcome to the directory assistance service-please say the name of the party you wish to reach.” Likewise, a caller may call a goods provider, such as a department store, and the caller may receive an automated voice interactive answering service such as “if you know the number of the store department you would like to reach, please enter the number now.” Such voice interactive services may be provided by on-the-premises equipment, or a goods/services provider may utilize the voice interactive services of a third party, such as a telecommunications services provider.
In order to provide such voice interactive services, audio files must be prepared for providing initial contact with the caller and for providing responses to requests by the caller. For example, following from the example described above, an audio file such as “welcome to the directory assistance service” must be prepared by the telecommunications services provider for playing to a caller when the caller calls the telecommunications services provider for directory assistance. Users of the recorded audio file, such as telecommunications services providers or other goods/services providers, may maintain a number of pre-recorded audio files for providing to listeners, as described above. That is, a pre-recorded audio file such as “welcome to the directory assistance service” may be established by a telecommunications services provider and may be saved for subsequent use.
Developers of audio files for use in voice interactive services systems, typically create a number of pre-recorded files that may be utilized individually or that may be combined with other pre-recorded audio files to create a desired audio file. For example, because a telecommunications services provider knows that it will need the audio file “welcome to the directory assistance service” a pre-recorded audio file for that statement may be prepared using a number of different age and gender voice talents, such as male youth, male adult, female youth, female adult, etc. Additionally, a number of statement segments may be pre-recorded that may subsequently be combined to create a desired audio file. For example, a pre-recorded phrase such as “welcome to” may be recorded, a pre-recorded audio such as “directory assistance” may be recorded, a pre-recorded file such as “please say the name” may recorded, and a pre-recorded file such as “of the party you wish to reach” may be recorded. Subsequently, if a developer of audio files for use in a voice interactive service, as described above, desires to create an audio file for the statement “welcome to the directory assistance service-please say the name of the party you wish to reach,” the developer may be required to combine the pre-recorded audio statement segments to create the desired statement.
According to prior art systems, developers of audio files for use in voice interactive services must determine the file location and file name of audio files or audio file statement segments required by the developer. Typically, the developer must manually search a database of audio files or audio file statement segments to locate desired audio files. Unfortunately, because the developer may require a specific voice talent, such as female adult, the developer must select audio files, listen to the audio files, and then determine whether a selected audio file is appropriate, or determine whether a selected audio file statement fragment may be used in association with other audio file statement segments to create a desired audio file. That is, the developer may have to select and listen to a number of statement segments such as “welcome to” and a number of statement segments such as “the directory assistance services” to find audio file statement segments that may be used to create a desired audio file. Because there are many ways to break a desired audio file statement into segments, the task of finding the appropriate way to break the desired phrase and finding suitable recorded audio files for each segment is very tedious, time consuming and error prone. Furthermore, if there are no files that satisfy a particular audio file statement, or if there are insufficient audio file segments to combine to create a desired audio file statement, the developer must create a new audio file or audio file segment.
It is with respect to these and other considerations that the present invention has been made.